Glen Cove's Retro Pastel Taco Bell Set for Modern Makeover

The pastel Taco Bell at 98 Forest Ave. in Glen Cove has stood out from the chain's newer locations for years, its weathered color palette and older architectural lines marking it as a remnant of an earlier era in fast-food design. That look is going away.

The redesign will give the Forest Ave. building a flat white exterior, updated roof accents, and the chain's modern white bell logo applied to both the main structure and the drive-thru. The renovation brings Glen Cove into alignment with Taco Bell's current brand standard, replacing everything that currently distinguishes the location visually from a modern build.

The work fits a pattern the chain has been following since a 2016 brand refresh moved Taco Bell away from the earth tones and pastel palettes that characterized its restaurants through the 1980s and 1990s. Older locations that retained those exteriors have been updated at varying rates as franchise agreements come up for renewal and remodeling timelines are negotiated. Glen Cove's retro exterior had made it one of the more recognizable holdovers in the New York market.

The Forest Ave. building's distinctive look had attracted notice well beyond Nassau County. It had been catalogued and circulated in online communities devoted to surviving examples of vintage fast-food architecture, a space where Taco Bell's older pastel designs are documented with the same urgency applied to other disappearing retail landmarks. That kind of following doesn't stop a renovation, but it does signal that the pastel exterior meant something to people beyond the regulars who pulled through the drive-thru.

For the crew working the Forest Ave. location, exterior renovations of this scope typically bring some operational disruption. The drive-thru is the revenue backbone of any suburban Taco Bell, and facade and signage work along the lane can complicate traffic flow during construction. How much disruption workers and customers absorb depends on how the permitted work is phased.

When the renovation wraps, the building at 98 Forest Ave. will be visually indistinguishable from a Taco Bell opened last year, its flat white exterior and white bell logo matching what the chain is building from the ground up in other markets. One of Long Island's last pastel-era Taco Bells will have quietly become something else.